Finding New Allies

The beauty of living life in honesty, is the ability to build connections with people who I'd fear doing so if I was trying to hide my past. Yesterday in my doctoral seminar, a new professor to my department was presenting on his journey through his education and how he successfully found a position in a top CJ program at a tier 1 university. It was an interesting conversation, but my ears especially perked up when he talked about his doctoral research and dissertation topic --- why employers choose to not prosecute employees who steal from their businesses. He is interested in white collar crime - from the business/employer point of view.

After the seminar, I approached him and said, very matter of factly, "I am one of those employees who worked for one of those employers you researched and I would love your input into my thesis..." I went on to tell him about how I am transitioning my blog entries from my time incarcerated into an autoethnography and he immediately drew a smile. He thought it would make a great thesis and also agreed that it has a high potential to be used in classrooms and elsewhere - because gaining this research is so difficult generally.

I asked if he would be open to talking with me about helping me present my past in such a way that I am able to be respectful to those who are the victims of my crime. I never want anyone to think that I do not think about the community (my community) and all my former friends and colleagues that were affected by my actions, even as I have done so much work on myself and try everything I can to help others. If I am going to be writing something public, then I want to make sure I am being contentious of how I am coming across to those who are likely to continue to harbor a lot of anger toward my crime.

After hearing this professor speak, I knew that he was the person who would be able to challenge me in just the right ways to make sure I have that point of view - the point of view of the victims - taken into account. It is the least I can do. While this research is about the experience of being incarcerated, I am going to have to introduce what brought me there and I there are just a ton of ways one can do that.

The professor already recommended a book of a man who struggled with a similar issue while incarcerated --- how does he balance the man he's become with the man he was... I look forward to reading the book. I actually picked up two books at the library today. One is called, "Out on the Run," and is a  book that is making a big splash for an ethnography written by a woman who lived among the people she was researching for six years while doing her dissertation research. I want to read it to see how her voice and thoughts are written throughout the book. The other book is called, "Doing Life," and is a woman's kinda autoethnography (it is edited by someone else) of doing time in prison. It did not receive good reviews, generally, and one thing I read in the reviews is that people should not care at all about the author, because she killed her husband. I want to read it, though, because it is the closest book to what I am going to be writing and I want to see what is written well and not so well in it.

However, I really want to learn from the latter book about how the woman presents herself. Going back to why I want to talk to my new ally in my CJ department, I do not want people looking at anything I write and saying that what I have written lacks value because of my past. I want to offer valuable research and I do not want personal differences to become what my writing becomes known for - that is not why I am spending years in school. So, it looks like I will be spending my winter break reading quite a few books.

In the meantime, I am just glad that my department continues to offer me incredible colleagues to work with who are able to offer me so many diverse perspectives. If I had to start all over again, I am glad it's a very different experience than the first time. The first experience was great and this is great too - just different and I will learn so much. The best thing about living a day at a time is that every day can bring us new opportunities as long as we are open to them!